


dreams of the desert

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Words, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, QWG First Time Challenge, slight humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22725181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: He meets her in a desert that’s full of poisonous creatures and yet he thinks she might just be what kills him.Bobbi and Hunter's first meeting.  For the Quakerider Writer's Guild First Time Challenge.
Relationships: Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse
Comments: 16
Kudos: 15
Collections: QuakeriderValentine'sDay





	dreams of the desert

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentine's day, beans! If you celebrate, or if you don't, I hope you're having lovely days!
> 
> I can't quite remember if the show ever explicitly goes into how Bobbi and Hunter met and google was not very helpful but I hope I did alright! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

He meets her in a desert that’s full of poisonous creatures and yet he thinks she might just be what kills him.

“Lance Hunter,” he tells her when he meets her, sunglasses on his sunburnt nose. His bag is slung over one shoulder, an injured one that’s never fully healed and that’s niggled him ever since, but when he looks at her it’s like he doesn’t feel it. Her hair is blonde, almost brighter than the sun, and this mission that he’s dreaded, tossed and turned over, doesn’t feel so terrible when he looks into her eyes.

“Bobbi Morse.”

His gut churns over, insides turning sour, and his brain, unaccustomed to filtering, lets uncensored thoughts spill out of his mouth.

“A Yank? Bloody fantastic.”

Instantly her smile, which he has to admit was cordial at best, vanishes, as if evaporating in the midday sun.

“Charming already so I see.” And her tone is frigid and makes him shiver even in this blasted heat and when she walks past him, even though he shouldn’t, he turns and looks after her and watches as she walks away.

-x-

That night, at dinner, he tries again.

They’re camped someway out in the desert, between rocks and boulders that make him feel so very far from home. The campfire is roaring, compliments to Mack, and other members of the team are beginning to line up with their mess tins and ration packs, chatting away as if they’ve been lifelong friends and not only met each other the day before.

Lance Hunter isn’t afraid. He was SAS, a special soldier, and as such there’s no room for it, or there never has been. He’d always been so focussed on his work that everything else just vanished out of his head, including his fear that he always convinced himself he never had in the first place.

But that was when he was part of a group, a band of brothers, and things are different now. He’s on his own. By choice, yes, by necessity for his sanity, but it’s just him and his own head and there’s no longer anything to keep the fear at bay.

He’s never been afraid around woman, not really. It’s the one thing he’s got, the one thing he’s retained throughout the nightmare of his life so far. He is smooth, charming without meaning to, and he fully uses it to his advantage. And it works.

On everyone except Miss Bobbi Morse.

There’s something about her, even in those first few seconds he met her, that turns him into how he’s always imagined those more inferior men might feel around women. His heart had beat quickly in his chest, his mouth had turned dry, and so she didn’t know, couldn’t tell that he was more nervous than he had been in recent memory, he had insulted her with the first thing that had come into his head which was, admittedly, a very cheap shot.

It makes him cringe to think about it now, so deeply that he thinks he may fold in half from it. However, he manages to summon up his courage and when they are in the queue for water, he taps her on the shoulder, an apology on the tip of his tongue.

“I’m not interested, Hunter,” she says, not even turning to look at him.

Instantly he feels affronted but instead of backing away he grits his teeth and says, “I was just going to apologise.”

“I don’t care,” she sighs. “You don’t mean it.”

He feels himself slipping, and his tone is more defensive than he means it to be when he says, “I do. I shouldn’t have spoken like that to you. I had just met you. It was wrong.”

“It’s not gonna work.”

He frowns. “What isn’t?”

Bobbi whips around, fast as lightning. Her eyes glitter in the firelight. “If I were a man would you be apologising to me? You don’t mean it. I don’t doubt you feel embarrassed about it but that’s only because at some point you imagine sleeping with me. Let me tell you one thing right now: that’s never gonna happen.”

“Oi! That’s not fair. You don’t even know me or what’s in my head.”

She cocks her head. “So you’re telling me you didn’t have visions of sleeping with me?”

Hunter frowns deeper. Okay, so he _had_ imagined it, but only very briefly, a passing thought. He hadn’t imagined it in detail, it was only a w _hat if,_ and it had vanished as soon as he had opened his big mouth. He wouldn’t dare follow it through after that. He is a gentleman, after all.

“You don’t know me,” he says. “You have no idea what I was thinking.”

“No, but I’ve met your kind before. The same way you’ve clearly met us Yanks before.” Her mouth makes a tight smile and his heart definitely does not skip a beat in his chest. “You’re all the same.”

And she walks away for the second time, leaving him utterly speechless and utterly at a loss as to what to do next.

-x-

The stars are shining when he, Lance Hunter, decides, for the third and final time, to try again.

It’s later. Very late. The fire is still roaring so they don’t all freeze to death in their tents and Hunter stands in front of it, rubbing his hands together to stave off the frostbite. His tentmates, both Americans and loud snorers, hadn’t even noticed as he had slipped out from beside them.

“Bloody Yanks,” he murmurs, blowing on his hands.

“Can’t you think of any other insult?”

He spins around. Bobbi Morse stands there in the firelight, her hair golden and her face distinctly unimpressed.

He sighs. “’Bloody Yanks’ pretty much sums everything up nicely, I think.”

Bobbi laughs. “Of course you do.”

Her voice is soft, however, her face devoid of any real annoyance, and she comes to stand next to him, rubbing her hands and blowing on them the same way that Hunter just did. He stands and watches, mouth agape.

“What?” She asks, almost laughing. “What are you staring at?”

“Nothing,” he says with a smile on his face, but he is very clearly looking at her.

They stand there for a second, side by side, warming their hands on an open fire. The night around them is cold and dark, unnervingly quiet, but right here at the centre it’s warm and the crackling of the fire reminds him that he’s alive.

“Why you out here?”

Bobbi shrugs. “Can’t sleep. First night in a new place and all, plus the jet lag’s a killer. You?”

Hunter shrugs. “Have trouble sleeping in general.”

She nods like she understands, and maybe she does. It would be nice, Hunter thinks, to be understood for once.

“Where were you before this?”

They still aren’t looking at each other, both looking into the fire. Maybe that’s why he finds it easier to spill his truth. “SAS.”

“Must have been tough.”

He shrugs, but it’s not as free as the last one. “It was. Saw some things, did some things. Now I’m here.” He turns to her. “What about you?”

She still doesn’t look at him but her face softens. “I’m where I’ve always been,” she says at last. “I like it and I’m good at it. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

He knows the feeling. It’s how he once felt once upon a time, when he was in a different place and a different time with a different set of people all around him. His band of brothers. He had felt invincible with them around.

They’re all gone now, some more permanently than others. Now he works alone, and he tries to tell himself that he likes it better this way.

“Listen, love,” he says, and this time she looks up at him. She’s ready to be annoyed, he can tell, but something in his tone stops her from going straight there. “I’m sorry for what I said about you. It wasn’t fair.”

“Apology accepted,” she says solemnly, but then the corners of her mouth quirk up into a smile. “You meant it though, didn’t you?”

This woman could kill him and he thinks he might let her. He grins slightly. “I did, but it’s not the point. Should have given you at least five minutes.”

She laughs. “Seems fair.”

He can’t explain it. In fact it’s something that is, by its very nature, indescribable. They don’t talk much more after that, both concentrating on keeping their hands warm instead. It’s a comfortable silence though, and he feels like he’d be quite happy to stay here for a very long time.

Eventually, though, Bobbi turns to him and says, “Well I’m off to go sleep. I hope the Yanks don’t keep you up all night.” She moves away from the fire. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Bob,” he says without thinking about it, and he’s absorbed in his own thoughts that he misses the way her catches, the little swallow in her throat that he’ll find out later is a nervous tick of hers she’ll pretend she doesn’t have.

“Hey, Hunter?”

“Yeah?”

“If you ever need someone to talk about the nightmares with then I’m here.” She shrugs. “If you want.”

There’s nothing he can force past the very large lump that has suddenly appeared in his throat. How she can see right through him is a mystery that he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to figure out. All he can do is press his lips together and nod.

Hunter watches as she walks away and even as he slips back to his own tent, crawls between the two snoring men, he cannot seem to forget the encounter. It replays over and over again in is mind until, eventually, it lulls him to sleep.

In the morning he gives up his place in the breakfast line to come and stand next to her. Later on she gives him half of the granola bar from her ration pack. Neither of them say anything about it.

Lance Hunter meets Bobbi Morse in a desert that’s full of wonderful things, and yet there is nothing more wonderful, he thinks, than the colour of her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day!


End file.
